First I met Anne here in Berlin. She didn’t fit. Walking down Ackerstraße in high heels and with perfect hair and a perfect dress was kind of a mismatch around 2001, 2002. And Ackerstraße was not Wedding or Kreuzberg. Mitte between Linienstraße and the Monbijoupark was always more Munich, more Milan, more Paris than the rest of the city. But it was not and never will be Los Angeles. Berlin is slow, suspicious of wealth, suspicious of fame, Berlin is jealous, Berlin is sour. And these were its great 10 years. Between 1996 and 2006. This was when every artist in the world would come to Berlin. We still had some bad art around und there were many cheap flats. Now everything looks the same and most of the younger people move on to Warsaw and Istanbul. Only the politicians, the families and the journalists stay.
Los Angeles is cheerful and sunny, Los Angeles is surf, Los Angeles is cars, Los Angeles is very superficial in a good way and porn in both ways––and it has “the industry”. It has this ability to create stars, to create dreams and narratives and stories. Not only in Hollywood. It has also the small stuff, the opponents, the weird, and Los Angeles has Steven Soderbergh (looking for a new grammar out there––versus “the tyranny of the narrative”) and Morrissey––and it has Anne Philippi. When I met her in the Chateau Marmont a few years ago I knew that she had found her place. And I love everything she writes. The homestory on James Ellroy, the BILD-thing on Berlusconi’s ridicules affair with an 18-year old, Myke Tyson on psychology, and James Franco on everything. Lindsay Lohan, Mike D, Peter Fonda and Phil Spector. And Anne had a blog from America: Miss Thomson for the German Rolling Stone. With fag in hand and in the spirit of Hunter S. I can’t wait to read her 60picks.

Disney Problems

1) M. will upset Disney, because they can’t forget about Hannah Montana (Miley’s old character as a child, that made them Billions and Billions) and naturally they would like her NOT to wear things like a comic body stocking. 2) M. will remind America that it can’t live without its Britneys and Lindsays in general and that it will create a new one, if the old one went to rehab. 3) M. will reach the poorest areas in South America and will tell girls and boys to come to the US under any circumstances (I’ve seen Miley on more cell phones in El Salvador then you can imagine 4) M. did and still does distract from Syria. 5) M. is upsetting, crazy making and attractive at the same time. 6) M. is a future main character in a Bret Easton Ellis novel. 7) You can’t love M. But you can’t blame her for this either. So America now has to deal with Miley.